Sowing the Seeds
by Jan Lee
Summary: [SHORT STORY.] In the beginning, Ino didn't think Shino even knew she existed. Ino-centric/Shino-centic. Shino/Ino. April/May Story #1
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.

**Rating: T**

**A/N:** A prequel to the Shino/Ino story "Flower Patch" I wrote for these two. I'm way behind on stories, so I apologize ahead of time for any errors as I type furiously to catch up. Anyway, please enjoy.

* * *

**Sowing the Seeds**

**Chapter One: Ino**

* * *

"Sakura! Sakura, look," Ino said, pointing with her head to the side. "Is that Shino?"

Sakura spared a glance in Ino's specified direction. "That's Shino all right. Why? What's wrong?"

They were together at a small café table. Between them were two palm-sized cups with green tea and sticks heavy with dango on the plate in the center. An umbrella shaded them from the blazing Konoha sun. They had settled down minutes ago to enjoy their treat, but a flutter from an overly long trenchcoat had caught Ino's attention. He stood apart from the crowd, propped against a wall, half-hidden behind a corner at the hat boutique diagonal to them.

"Nothing's wrong. I just have a feeling"- -because she had a sneaking suspicion he'd been following them. There was no evidence to prove it, but Ino's gut was reliable, much to the chagrin of her closest friends.

"What kind of feeling?"

Ino swept her bangs behind her ear. "I'm sensing that his presence here is not coincidental. Oh, God!" He straightened from the wall. Those dark shades he used to hide behind were set on her, and she could only assume he knew she saw him. "He's coming over, I think! What'll we do?"

"Ino, calm down. It'll be perfectly fine. We can invite him to our tea," Sakura replied. "At least he's not as weird as Lee is."

"No, but much more closed-mouthed. I've never had much luck in a conversation with him," admitted Ino. She blew steam off her tea. "Which, let's face it, he's not the easiest person to talk with."

And let's face it, she thought, you'd have an easier time talking with a brick wall. But that would be rude to speak out loud. Shino never struck her as personable, but he did get on with carefree and easygoing Kiba and Hinata. By proxy, she'd interacted with him on missions. Each time, she received the distinct impression that he spoke with her out of necessity, not out of any sense of companionship or friendship.

"I wonder what's going on. Oh! You don't think an emergency, do you?" As usual, Sakura leapt to the worse possible conclusion. Her fingers had even tightened around the cup.

Ino sighed. "It's not going to be that, I'm sure." Shino was within speaking distance, now. "Shino! Hi, how are you?"

"I am well," he replied in that aloof monotone that hadn't changed since their Academy days, "and you, Ino? Sakura?"

They replied that all was well. Then there was an awkward pause in the conversation. No one seemed to know how to continue. "So," Sakura said, chirrupy, "did you want to sit down with us, have some tea?"

"No, thank you."

Again, an awkward pause swelled up between them. Sakura pleaded at Ino with her eyes. Ino freshened her smile. She sensed his hesitance to state outright what was on his mind. "Was there something you needed, then?"

"Yes. " He paused, and it seemed he was shoring up strength to speak at length. "I wish to familiarize myself with the greenhouse. When would be a convenient time to do so?"

All this was directed at Ino. She blinked, agog that he actually addressed her, and framed her response. "Are you available today? Maybe in an hour or so?"

"That is acceptable. I shall meet you on location in one hour. Goodbye, Ino." He did a shrug with his shoulders like an informal, shallow bow to her and Sakura. "Goodbye, Sakura."

The girls returned the courtesy and watched, speechless, as Shino walked away and disappeared from sight in the crowd.

"What in the world…?"

"I know," Ino answered. She'd forgotten the dango and so took one morsel between her teeth, sliding it from the stick. It was soft and sweet; very delicious. "I can't understand him. Why didn't he ask one of his cousins to show him around? They all have access to the place. It's very…"

"Weird," they both said in tandem.

They sat a moment longer, in contemplation. Then Sakura helped herself to the dango as well, making little pleasurable hums as she chewed. When she swallowed she said, "I keep forgetting that the Aburames and Yamanakas are in business together."

Without the Aburames' help with pollinating the Yamanakas' flowers, the flower shop would've gone bust long ago. Luckily, Dad struck a deal with Shibi and they entered into a contractual agreement to upkeep a communal greenhouse that supported healthy insect and floral species. Even though the Aburame insects did not eat pollen, the clan has an uncanny ability to control bees, ladybugs, and other pollen-spreading insects. The agreement was win-win for both parties.

Forty minutes later, Ino said her goodbyes to Sakura and the two girls went their separate ways. Ino threaded her path towards Yamanaka Flowers. The greenhouse was in a lot behind the shop, fenced off and protected. When she rounded the corner to the shop's block, she stopped. Shino waited for her, back and foot flat on the shop's door, hands deep in pockets.

She did say an hour or so, right? Flustered, she hurried up to him. "Shino, I'm so sorry! I didn't realize you were waiting. I didn't keep you long, did I?"

"It was no trouble," he replied as he stepped to the sidewalk. "Please. Think nothing of it."

Gesturing vaguely to the shop, she said, "The greenhouse is around the back. There's a gate lock and then a lock for the actual greenhouse. I can have a copy of both keys made for you this week. Follow me."

She covered up any pauses in conversation by taking charge. Around the side of the shop was a wooden privacy fence with a wide locked door. It opened to an outside work area with trees, bushes, houseplants, and other various flowers that were study enough to survive the sun and night. Sitting behind this squarish, neat area was the glass greenhouse.

"You see that area over there?" she gestured to a white wooden frame with hanging slats. "That's where we keep the bees. Beekeeping equipment is inside."

They had reached the door, which she unlocked and opened for him. "Here we are."

Muggy air clung to her skin, the rich flavor of verdant leafage comforted her. Various grow lights, suspended from the ceiling, rocked slightly under the blow of fans. Situated in a corner was the workstation. She told Shino about the records and schedules that were written on the chalkboard hung behind the workstation, how there were set meetings once a month to discuss findings and supply and demand. Lockers were in the back, along with a supply cabin. Everything had a place.

Throughout her monologue, Shino remained silent and distant. He looked where she told him to look, stepped where she told him to step, but otherwise she felt as if words left her mouth only to crowd the air. It threw her off guard to interact with someone who never changed emotions.

"Do you have any questions so far?" she asked. All her talking had left her throat dry. "We run a pretty simple outfit here."

"No. Everything is well organized. Thank you."

It was then she noticed a dry, dead bud on one of her flower plants. Deftly, she reached and plucked free the dead bud. When she withdrew her hand, she noticed a beetle on her knuckle, black and blue shining exoskeleton and pinchers. Without a second thought, she held aloft her finger and opened one of the windows to the side. There, she blew on the beetle so that it would take flight.

She closed the window, smiling at Shino. His gaze was heavy on her and the intensity of it prickled on her skin. What had she done that merited such…concentration? "You're welcome. I'd say that's about it. You can come here whenever you like, but be sure to lock up afterwards."

"I'll do so." He followed her out of the greenhouse doors to the sunlight and cool breeze. While she locked the door, he stood near her elbow. "Ino."

"Hm-hm?"

There was a long hesitation, long enough for her to cast a glance at him. His tallness towered over her, so that she had to crane her neck. Up there, he had on a frown, a grave curve of his lips, and she wondered what caused it. Finally he said, "What are your hours this week?"

Strange. "This week? Uh…I'm working evenings, six to ten. I've got a cousin coming in to work the day shift. Morino called me in mornings to work a case for the T&I squad." She didn't know why she had to add that last part, but it had to do with feeling like he judged her behind those sunglasses.

"I see." He shifted as they reached the gate and held it open for her. "I shall leave you then. My team and I have a training appointment. Thank you again for seeing me around."

"Sure. Anytime. Tell Hinata and Kiba I said hello."

"I will do that. Goodbye."

She told him goodbye. Once more, he turned, stuffed his hands into his pockets, and walked away, not hurrying but not sauntering either. Ino wasn't sure quite what to make of it, and decided that because it was Shino, there was no reason to make anything of it. Her mind fluttered to other necessary business and soon, forgot the entire interaction.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **I quickly finished this chapter. Shino's head is a very interesting place as he seems to have such tight control over his thoughts. I love stirring him up around Ino. Enjoy!

* * *

**Chapter Two: Shino**

* * *

"You definitely reek of flowers, Shino." Kiba's nostrils flared and there was a tell-tale smirk revealing twin fangs. "You been rollin around in posy patch somewhere?"

Shino, deep in the recesses of his jacket, did not immediately respond. To deny would reward Kiba. To tell the truth would also reward him. So his only option lay in the grey area between honesty and outright falsehood. "I've taken some hours at the Yamanaka greenhouse. Our family has a vested interest in collaborating with them."

Hinata smiled up at him. "Oh, because of your kikaichu?"

"Yes. That is correct," he responded. His shaded goggles hid his stare at Kiba. Everything hinged on his reaction. "I spent some time today familiarizing myself there this afternoon."

It was Akamaru who indirectly spared him from further scrutiny. He padded up with an enormous stick clenched in his maw. Kiba's attention abated as he heaved the stick, which sailed, end over end, into the distance. With a thunderous bark, Akamaru bounded after it. His teammates distracted, Shino revisited his successful interaction with Ino.

She had seemed wary at first, but then she'd shone with warmth and hospitality. And when she'd spared the beetle's life, almost without thinking, Shino had promised that he'd double his efforts win her over. He knew he had to proceed with caution. Any misstep would destroy what little rapport he'd established so far. They were too distant, professional comrades at most, and Shino feared that distance.

He was to blame for it, anyway. He'd harbored this…confusion, this yen, for longer than he'd like to admit. Because he hadn't understood it for what it was, he'd allowed the separation, encouraged it. May he be in time to change her mind about him.

"Shino? You comin or what?" called Kiba. "Your jonin exam is next week. You can't be gatherin wool."

Shino hid an inner sigh. "I am not a wool-gatherer. Shall we run our routine paces?"

"Nah. All that's boring. Let's do the awesome stuff," said impatient Kiba. "Besides if we always start off easy, won't that mess you up on your exam? Hinata, you okay with that?"

Hinata pushed her hair behind her ears. "If Shino is fine with it, than I am as well."

"Then let us begin."

The trio, who had trained together since they were twelve, had survived the destruction of their village, had fought back-to-back through a war, knew to a tee each weakness and strength the other possessed. Shino stood back, poised, as was Kiba and Akamaru and Hinata, who took up her Gentle Fist stance, Byakugan activated. It would be Kiba who would attack first, as reliable as the sun at dawn. Perhaps it would be wise to initiate the attack and put both on their guard.

The insects inside him chattered. His chakra fed them, strengthened them, and his power coursed into a billion tiny bodies. He fanned their preparation. They crowded out into his skin, onto his clothes and filled the air with a great, black cloud. The cloud hovered overhead, swirling and humming, and as Shino orchestrated two smaller detachments to burrow into the ground to lay a trap, he flung the entire host at Kiba and Akamaru.

Kiba and Akamaru dodged the insectile wall, sprinting into the trees to evade, and simultaneously, Hinata leapt into the foray, eyes ablaze as engorged veins pumped chakra into them. He kept his balance, twisted from side to side, and hopped around. Her ability allowed her to cut down huge swaths of his insects, so to preserve them, he kept them out of her reach. That meant _he _had to occupy her attention.

Throughout Hinata's rapid melee attacks, the enormous lion's heads burning blue on her fists because one sideswipe from that would flatten him, he expected Kiba and Akamaru to pounce.

They did not disappoint. However, he did not expect their ferocity. They had transformed and joined together into a triple-headed Cerberus beast on steroids that Shino had seen before, but not expected Kiba use so early in the sparring. When his insects screamed their warning, he shot forward and missed, by a slim margin, the fang attack Kiba had perfected.

Perched on a tree branch, Shino felt in Kiba's wake the amped chakra that electified the air. At least the attack had a longish turn-around. Kiba, or the monster he'd transformed into, stopped spinning, clawing long furrows into helpless soil and taking much vegetation along with it. He had to orient himself, recalibrate his senses, and initiate a second attack. The time this took benefited Shino, but it was then that he realized he'd lost track of Hinata.

Fatal error. The sizeable tree exploded, shards of bark flicking him, as her punch flung him backwards into foliage. Pain sizzled to the deepest corners in his body, and he'd taken more damage than he thought missed him. They had gotten him off balance, but he had the advantage of the trap. He had to lead them into it or he would lose this match.

Hinata's fists soared at him, and he ducked while molding his chakra into a body double. Kiba wouldn't fall for it, but Hinata might. His insects swarmed together, thickened the air into a miasma of writhing, and he slipped the body double into his place. Thousands of his insects cooked from Hinata's heated chakra and littered the forest floor. Shino slipped away as he suppressed his chakra so that Hinata could not differentiate his chakra system from his body double.

And even before he registered the earthquake at his feet, he leapt to avoid the epicenter. A massive beast punctured the earth's crust, splattering dirt clods in 360 degrees. He hadn't been quick enough. A backlash caught him, just an edge, but it was quite enough to crash him several meters into the unforgiving dirt. Heart throbbing in his throat, pain an electric fire in his chest and limbs, Shino struggled to stand.

Kiba's attack had put him in exactly the position necessary to spring his trap and win the game. With the patience for which he was renown, Shino stood his ground. His systems overloaded with chakra, the swirl of it around him, the power surged into his insects as he dipped deep into his well. Hinata and Kiba closed in.

A fleck of motion in his peripheral snagged his attention. He glanced, nothing more, but that was all it took. His brain captured the image of silky blonde hair trailing in the breeze, of a violet outfit and slim, pale legs. Afterwards, darkness.

At first, in the dark, he was comfortable. He noticed the edges of light brightening his vision, and with the light, came immediate and breathtaking agony. Before he had a chance to scream as the agony ripped into his nerves, coolness filled his body. He'd been healed enough to understand this coolness as someone else's chakra inside him.

Shino awoke, then, and Ino's beautiful, anxious face hovered over him. She was everything he could see, and he wanted that to be the case forever.

"Ino, how is he?"

"Does he need the hospital? Ino? Will he survive?"

"He's okay, guys! He's okay," Ino said, cutting off Kiba and Hinata. "Here, lie still for a minute, Shino."

She propped his head onto her lap. Shino's stomach knotted up, and he had trouble breathing. His head was in Ino's lap. Was that his nerves buzzing, or his kikaichu? To the side, Kiba and Hinata knelt. Worry was a thundercloud on their brows. Shino spared them a second's glance because he was so near Ino he could watch her breathe, smell the flowers on her, see the gradual darkening from sky blue to ocean blue in her eyes.

"So what exactly were you three up to that caused this?" Her tone was cross.

"Heh," Kiba said, and to his credit, sheepishly scratched his temple, "didn't you know? Shino's up for jonin in a coupla weeks."

Hinata nodded. "Shino asked us to help him train for it. We decided to do our very best techniques for practice."

"Ah. Well, looks like mission accomplished. I don't think he'll need the hospital, but a check-up from a doctor couldn't hurt, just in case. Shino, how do you feel?"

He had to do something instead of stare up at her, dumb and deaf. "Ino. I'm…fine. But what are you doing here?"

The sun set with golden pomp, its final rays giving a gilt sheen to her skin. "I closed the shop a little earlier than usual to get your keys cut. I came to give them to you."

"Oh."

She smiled at him and helped him sit up. "There we go. Any dizziness? Or nausea?"

"No." Her hands distracted him and he really wished Kiba and HInata weren't there witnessing this quite intimate exchange. "I can stand."

But when he climbed to his feet, his head betrayed him. The ground swooped up and tilted, so that he wobbled. Ino gripped his arm to steady him. "Whoa. Okay. Lie back down." He obeyed her. She spread her hands on his chest, her features serious. "Let me see. You could have a concussion."

Once again her chakra sifted into his tissue, mixed with his chakra system to lick into his deepest, darkest parts. He stared at her face, fortunate to have shades blocking his gaze. The gentleness, warmth, and intensity of her chakra inside him stirred his feelings for her, like a tide roaring from the bluest depths of an ocean. His lovely insects quivered under his skin, perturbed with the touch of this new emotion. For no reason, embarrassment lifted a hot wave in his cheeks. Nerves knotted in his stomach. Nerves and that yen he always had when in her presence.

"Hm. There doesn't seem to be any brain damage. It does look like you're overheated some. Get some rest and drink lots of water. Try and stay cool for a day. If you continue to have dizziness or nausea, go to the hospital," she said. "That's all I can do for you."

For a second time, she helped him stand, but this time, she made sure Kiba propped him up. He immediately felt her absence, a massive distance, and was irritated that Kiba gripped him for dear life. Whatever Ino had done, he felt fine and had no dizziness. Regardless, the whole way home, Kiba and Hinata fussed over him, right up to his door. In his shadowed living room, he slumped to the couch. Ino's voice lingered in his mind, light, tinkling, pleasing.

Then he realized she forgotten to give him the keys.

* * *

**A/N: **Sorry. Such a lame-o plot device. LOL. Please let me know concerns & questions. I intend on keeping the story as simple as possible for easy writing and easy reading. Until next time. =)


End file.
